THERE then they rested, as folk wearied with the toilsome journey, when
they had set sure watches round about their campment; and they ate
quietly what meat they had with them, and so gat them to sleep in the
wood on the eve of battle.
But not all slept; for the two captains went about amongst the companies,
Folk-might to the east, Face-of-god to the west, to look to the watches,
and to see that all was ordered duly. Also the Sun-beam slept not, but
she lay beside Bow-may at the foot of an oak-tree; she watched
Face-of-god as he went away amidst the men of the Host, and watched and
waked abiding his returning footsteps.
The night was well worn by then he came back to his place in the vanward,
and on his way back he passed through the folk of the Steer laid along on
the grass, all save those of the watch, and the light of the moon high
aloft was mingled with the light of the earliest dawn; and as it happed
he looked down, and lo! close to his feet the face of the Bride as she
lay beside her grand-sire, her head pillowed on a bundle of bracken. She
was sleeping soundly like a child who has been playing all day, and whose
sleep has come to him unsought and happily. Her hands were laid together
by her side; her cheek was as fair and clear as it was wont to be at her
best; her face looked calm and happy, and a lock of her dark-red hair
strayed from her uncovered head over her breast and lay across her
wrists, so peacefully she slept.
Face-of-god turned his eyes from her at once, and went by swiftly, and
came to his own company. The Sun-beam saw him coming, and rose
straightway to her feet from beside Bow-may, who lay fast asleep, and she
held out her hands to him; and he took them and kissed them, and he cast
his arms about her and kissed her mouth and her face, and she his in
likewise; and she said:
‘O Gold-mane, if this were but the morrow of to-morrow! Yet shall all be
well; shall it not?’
Her voice was low, but it waked Bow-may, who sat up at once broad awake,
after the manner of a hunter of the waste ever ready for the next thing
to betide, and moreover the Sun-beam had been in her thoughts these two
days, and she feared for her, lest she should be slain or maimed. Now
she smiled on the Sun-beam and said:
‘What is it? Does thy mind forebode evil? That needeth not. I tell
thee it is not so ill for us of the sword to be in Silver-dale. Thrice
have I been there since the Overthrow, and never more than a half-score
in company, and yet am I whole to-day.’
‘Yea, sister,’ said Face-of-god, ‘but in past times ye did your deed and
then fled away; but now we come to abide here, and this night is the last
of lurking.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘a little way from this I saw such things that we had
good will to abide here longer, few as we were, but that we feared to be
taken alive.’
‘What things were these?’ said Face-of-god.
‘Nay,’ she said, ‘I will not tell thee now; but mayhap in the lighted
winter feast-hall, when the kindred are so nigh us and about us that they
seem to us as if they were all the world, I may tell it thee; or mayhap I
never shall.’
Said the Sun-beam, smiling: ‘Thou wilt ever be talking, Bow-may. Now let
the War-leader depart, for he will have much to do.’
And she was well at ease that she had seen Face-of-god again; but he
said:
‘Nay, not so much; all is well-nigh done; in an hour it will be broad
day, and two hours thereafter shall the Banner be displayed on the edge
of Silver-dale.’
The cheek of the Sun-beam flushed, and paled again, as she said: ‘Yea, we
shall stand even as our Fathers stood on the day when, coming from off
the waste, they beheld it, and knew it would be theirs. Ah me! how have
I longed for this morn. But now—Tell me, Gold-mane, dost thou deem that
I am afraid? And I whom thou hast deemed to be a God.’
Quoth Bow-may: ‘Thou shalt deem her twice a God ere noon-tide, brother
Gold-mane. But come now! the hour of deadly battle is at hand, and we
may not laugh that away; and therefore I bid thee remember, Gold-mane,
how thou didst promise to kiss me once more on the verge of deadly
battle.’
Therewith she stood up before him, and he tarried not, but kind and
smiling took her face between his two hands and kissed her lips, and she
cast her arms about him and kissed him, and then sank down on the grass
again, and turned from him, and laid her face amongst the grass and the
bracken, and they could see that she was weeping, and her body was shaken
with sobs. But the Sun-beam knelt down to her, and caressed her with her
hand, and spake kind words to her softly, while Face-of-god went his ways
to meet Folk-might.
Now was the dawn fading into full daylight; and between dawn and sunrise
were all men stirring; for the watch had waked the hundred-leaders, and
they the leaders of scores and half-scores, and they the whole folk; and
they sat quietly in the wood and made no noise.
In the night the watch of the Sickle had fallen in with a thrall who had
stolen up from the Dale to set gins for hares, and now in the early
morning they brought him to the War-leader. He was even such a man as
those with whom Face-of-god had fallen in before, neither better nor
worse than most of them: he was sore afraid at first, but by then he was
come to the captains he understood that he had happened upon friends; but
he was dull of comprehension and slow of speech. Albeit Folk-might
gathered from him that the Dusky Men had some inkling of the onslaught;
for he said that they had been gathering together in the marketplace of
Silver-stead, and would do so again soon. Moreover, the captains deemed
from his speech that those new tribes had come to hand sooner than was
looked for, and were even now in the Dale. Folk-might smiled as one who
is not best pleased when he heard these tidings; but Face-of-god was glad
to hear thereof; for what he loathed most was that the war should drag
out in hunting of scattered bands of the foe. Herewith came Dallach to
them as they talked (for Face-of-god had sent for him), and he fell to
questioning the man further; by whose answers it seemed that many men
also had come into the Dale from Rose-dale, so that they of the kindreds
were like to have their hands full. Lastly Dallach drew from the thrall
that it was on that very morning that the great Folk-mote of the Dusky
Men should be holden in the market-place of the Stead, which was right
great, and about it were the biggest of the houses wherein the men of the
kindred had once dwelt.
So when they had made an end of questioning the thrall, and had given him
meat and drink, they asked him if he would take weapons in his hand and
lead them on the ways into the Dale, bidding him look about the wood and
note how great and mighty an host they were. And the carle yeasaid this,
after staring about him a while, and they gave him spear and shield, and
he went with the vanward as a way-leader.
Again presently came a watch of the Shepherds, and they had found a man
and a woman dead and stark naked hanging to the boughs of a great
oak-tree deep in the wood. This men knew for some vengeance of the Dusky
Men, for it was clear to see that these poor people had been sorely
tormented before they were slain. Also the same watch had stumbled on
the dead body of an old woman, clad in rags, lying amongst the rank grass
about a little flow; she was exceeding lean and hunger-starved, and in
her hand was a frog which she had half eaten. And Dallach, when he heard
of this, said that it was the wont of the Dusky Men to slay their thralls
when they were past work, or to drive them into the wilderness to die.
Lastly came a watch from the men of the Face, having with them two more
thralls, lusty young men; these they had come upon in company of their
master, who had brought them up into the wood to shoot him a buck, and
therefore they bare bows and arrows. The watch had slain the master
straightway while the thralls stood looking on. They were much afraid of
the weaponed men, but answered to the questioning much readier than the
first man; for they were household thralls, and better fed and clad than
he, who was but a toiler in the fields. They yeasaid all his tale, and
said moreover that the Folk-mote of the Dusky Men should be holden in the
market-place that forenoon, and that most of the warriors should be
there, both the new-comers and the Rose-dale lords, and that without
doubt they should be under arms.
To these men also they gave a good sword and a helm each, and bade them
be brisk with their bows, and they said yea to marching with the Host;
and indeed they feared nothing so much as being left behind; for if they
fell into the hands of the Dusky Men, and their master missing, they
should first be questioned with torments, and then slain in the evillest
manner.
Now whereas things had thus betid, and that they knew thus much of their
foemen, Face-of-god called all the chieftains together, and they sat on
the green grass and held counsel amongst them, and to one and all it
seemed good that they should suffer the Dusky Men to gather together
before they meddled with them, and then fall upon them in such order and
such time as should seem good to the captains watching how things went;
and this would be easy, whereas they were all lying in the wood in the
same order as they would stand in battle-array if they were all drawn up
together on the brow of the hill. Albeit Face-of-god deemed it good,
after he had heard all that they who had been in the Stead could tell him
thereof, that the Shepherd-Folk, who were more than three long hundreds,
and they of the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull, four hundreds in all,
should take their places eastward of the Woodlanders who had led the
vanward.
Straightway the word was borne to these men, and the shift was made: so
that presently the Woodlanders were amidmost of the Host, and had with
them on their right hands the Men of the Steer, the Bridge, and the Bull,
and beyond them the Shepherd-Folk. But on their left hand lay the Men of
the Vine, then they of the Sickle, and lastly the Men of the Face, and
these three kindreds were over five hundreds of warriors: as for the Men
of the Wolf, they abode at first with those companies which they had led
through the wastes, though this was changed afterwards.
All this being done, Face-of-god gave out that all men should break their
fast in peace and leisure; and while men were at their meat, Folk-might
spake to Face-of-god and said: ‘Come, brother, for I would show thee a
goodly thing; and thou, Dallach, come with us.’
Then he brought them by paths in the wood till Face-of-god saw the sky
shine white between the tree-boles, and in a little while they were come
well-nigh out of the thicket, and then they went warily; for before them
was nought but the slopes of Wood-dale, going down steeply into
Silver-dale, with nought to hinder the sight of it, save here and there
bushes or scattered trees; and so fair and lovely it was that Face-of-god
could scarce forbear to cry out. He saw that it was only at the upper or
eastern end, where the mountains of the Waste went round about it, that
the Dale was narrow; it soon widened out toward the west, and for the
most part was encompassed by no such straight-sided a wall as was
Burgdale, but by sloping hills and bents, mostly indeed somewhat higher
and steeper than the pass wherein they were, but such as men could well
climb if they had a mind to, and there were any end to their journey.
The Dale went due west a good way, and then winded about to the
southwest, and so was hidden from them thereaway by the bents that lay on
their left hand. As it was wider, so it was not so plain a ground as was
Burgdale, but rose in knolls and little hills here and there. A river
greater than the Weltering Water wound about amongst the said mounds; and
along the side of it out in the open dale were many goodly houses and
homesteads of stone. The knolls were mostly covered over with vines, and
there were goodly and great trees in groves and clumps, chiefly oak and
sweet chestnut and linden; many were the orchards, now in blossom, about
the homesteads; the pastures of the neat and horses spread out bright
green up from the water-side, and deeper green showed the acres of the
wheat on the lower slopes of the knolls, and in wide fields away from the
river.
Just below the pitch of the hill whereon they were, lay Silver-stead, the
town of the Dale. Hitherto it had been an unfenced place; but Folk-might
pointed to where on the western side a new white wall was rising, and on
which, young as the day yet was, men were busy laying the stones and
spreading the mortar. Fair seemed that town to Face-of-god: the houses
were all builded of stone, and some of the biggest were roofed with lead,
which also as well as silver was dug out of the mountains at the eastern
end of the Dale. The market-place was clear to see from where they
stood, though there were houses on all sides of it, so wide it was. From
their standing-place it was but three furlongs to this heart of
Silver-dale; and Face-of-god could see brightly-clad men moving about in
it already. High above their heads he beheld two great clots of scarlet
and yellow raised on poles and pitched in front of a great stone-built
hall roofed with lead, which stood amidmost of the west end of the Place,
and betwixt those poles he saw on a mound with long slopes at its sides
somewhat of white stone, and amidmost of the whole Place a great stack of
faggot-wood built up four-square. Those red and yellow things on the
poles he deemed would be the banners of the murder-carles; and Folk-might
told him that even so it was, and that they were but big bunches of
strips of woollen cloth, much like to great ragmops, save that the rags
were larger and longer: no other token of war, said Folk-might, did those
folk carry, save a crookbladed sword, smeared with man’s blood, and
bigger than any man might wield in battle.
‘Art thou far-seeing, War-leader?’ quoth he. ‘What canst thou see in the
market-place?’
Said Face-of-god: ‘Far-seeing am I above most men, and I see in the Place
a man in scarlet standing by the banner, which is pitched in front of the
great stone hall, near to the mound with the white stone on it; and
meseemeth he beareth a great horn in his hand.’
Said Folk-might: ‘Yea, and that stone hall was our Mote-house when we
were lords of the Dale, and thence it was that they who are now thralls
of the Dusky Men sent to them their message and token of yielding. And
as for that white stone, it is the altar of their god; for they have but
one, and he is that same crook-bladed sword. And now that I look, I see
a great stack of wood amidmost the market-place, and well I know what
that betokeneth.’
‘Lo you!’ said Face-of-god, ‘the man with the horn is gone up on to the
altar-mound, and meseemeth he is setting the little end of the horn to
his mouth.’
‘Hearken then!’ said Folk-might. And in a moment came the hoarse
tuneless sound of the horn down the wind towards them; and Folk-might
said:
‘I deem I should know what that blast meaneth; and now is it time that
the Host drew nigher to set them in array behind these very trees. But
if ye will, War-leader, we will abide here and watch the ways of the
foemen, and send Dallach with the word to the Host; also I would have
thee suffer me to bid hither at once two score and ten of the best of the
bowmen of our folk and the Woodlanders, and Wood-wise to lead them, for
he knoweth well the land hereabout, and what is good to do.’
‘It is good,’ said Face-of-god. ‘Be speedy, Dallach!’
So Dallach departed, running lightly, and the two chiefs abode there; and
the horn in Silver-stead blew at whiles for a little, and then stayed;
and Folk-might said:
‘Lo you! they come flockmeal to the Mote-stead; the Place will be filled
ere long.’
Said Face-of-god: ‘Will they make offerings to their god at the hallowing
in of their Folk-mote? Where then are the slaughter-beasts?’
‘They shall not long be lacking,’ said Folk-might. ‘See you it is
getting thronged about the altar and the Mote-house.’
Now there were four ways into the Market-place of Silver-stead turned
toward the four aírts, and the midmost of the kindreds’ battle looked
right down the southern one, which went up to the wood, but stopped there
in a mere woodland path, and the more part of the town lay north and west
of this way, albeit there was a way from the east also. But the
hill-side just below the two captains lay two furlongs west of this
southern way; and it went down softly till it was gotten quite near to
the backs of the houses on the south side of the Market-place, and was
sprinkled scantly with bushes and trees as aforesaid; but at last were
there more bushes, which well-nigh made a hedge across it, reaching from
the side of the southern way; and a foot or two beyond these bushes the
ground fell by a steep and broken bent down to the level of the
Market-place, and betwixt that fringe of bushes and the backs of the
houses on the south side of the Place was less it maybe than a full
furlong: but the southern road aforesaid went down softly into the
Market-place, since it had been fashioned so by men.
Now the two chiefs heard a loud blast of horns come up from the town, and
lo! a great crowd of men wending their ways down the road from the north,
and they came into the market-place with spears and other weapons tossing
in the air, and amidst of these men, who seemed to be all of the
warriors, they saw as they drew nigher some two score and ten of men clad
in long raiment of yellow and scarlet, with tall spiring hats of strange
fashion on their heads, and in their hands long staves with great blades
like scythes done on to them; and again, in the midst of these yellow and
red glaive-bearers, in the very heart of the throng were some score of
naked folk, they deemed both men and women, but were not sure, so close
was the throng; nor could they see if they were utterly naked.
‘Lo you, brother!’ quoth Folk-might, ‘said I not that the beasts for the
hewing should not tarry? Yonder naked folk are even they: and ye may
well deem that they are the thralls of the Dusky Men; and meseemeth by
the whiteness of their skins they be of the best of them. For these
felons, it is like, look to winning great plenty of thralls in Burgdale,
and so set the less store on them they have, and may expend them freely.’
As he spake they heard the sound of men marching in the wood behind them,
and they turned about and saw that there was come Wood-wise, and with him
upwards of two score and ten of the bowmen of the Woodlanders and the
Wolf—huntsmen, cragsmen, and scourers of the Waste; men who could shoot
the chaffinch on the twig a hundred yards aloof; who could make a
hiding-place of the bennets of the wayside grass, or the stem of the
slender birch-tree. With these must needs be Bow-may, who was the
closest shooter of all the kindreds.
So then Wood-wise told the War-leader that Dallach had given the word to
the Host, and that all men were astir and would be there presently in
their ordered companies; and Face-of-god spake to Folk-might, and said:
‘Chief of the Wolf, wilt thou not give command to these bowmen, and set
them to the work; for thou wottest thereof.’
‘Yea, that will I,’ said Folk-might, and turned to Wood-wise, and said:
‘Wood-wise, get ye down the slope, and loose on these felons, who have a
murder on hand, if so be ye have a chance to do it wisely. But in any
case come ye all back; for all shall be needed yet to-day. So flee if
they pursue, for ye shall have us to flee to. Now be ye wary, nor let
the curse of the Wolf and the Face lie on your slothfulness.’
Wood-wise did but nod his head and lift his hand to his fellows, who set
off after him down the slope without more tarrying. They went very
warily, as if they were hunting a quarry which would flee from them; and
they crept amongst the grass and stones from bush to bush like serpents,
and so, unseen by the Dusky Men, who indeed were busied over their own
matters, they came to the fringe of bushes above the broken ground
aforesaid, and there they took their stand, and before them below those
steep banks was but the space at the back of the houses. As to the
houses, as aforesaid, they were not so high as elsewhere about the
Market-place; and at the end of a long low hall there was a gap between
its gable and the next house, whereby they had a clear sight of the Place
about the god’s altar and the banners, and the great hall of Silver-dale,
with the double stair that went up to the door thereof.
There then they made them ready, and Wood-wise set men to watch that none
should come sidelong on them unawares; their bows were bent and their
quivers open, and they were eager for the fray.
Thus they beheld the Market-place from their cover, and saw that those
folk who were to be hewn to the god were now standing facing the altar in
a half-ring, and behind them in another half-ring the glaive-bearers who
had brought them thither stood glaive in hand ready to hew them down when
the token should be given; and these were indeed the priests of the god.
There was clear space round about these poor slaughter-thralls, so that
the bowmen could see them well, and they told up a score of them, half
men, half women, and they were all stark naked save for wreaths of
flowers about their middles and their necks; and they had shackles of
lead about their wrists; which same lead should be taken out of the fire
wherein they should be burned, and from the shape it should take after it
had passed through the fire would the priests foretell the luck of the
deed to be done.
It was clear to be seen from thence that Folk-might was right when he
said that these slaughter-thralls were of the best of the house-thralls
and bed-mates of the Dusky Men, and that these felons were open-handed to
their god, and would not cheat him, or withhold from him the best and
most delicate of all they had.
Now spake Wood-wise to those about him: ‘It is sure that Folk-might would
have us give these poor thralls a chance, and that we must loose upon the
felons who would hew them down; and if we are to come back again, we can
go no nigher. What sayest thou, Bow-may? Is it nigh enough? Can aught
be done?’
‘Yea, yea,’ she said, ‘nigh enough it is; but let Gold-ring be with me
and half a score of the very best, whether they be of our folk or the
Woodlanders, men who cannot miss such a mark; and when we have loosed,
then let all loose, and stay not till our shot be spent. Haste, now
haste! time presseth; for if the Host showeth on the brow of the hill,
these felons will hew down their slaughter-beasts before they turn on
their foemen. Let the grey-goose wing speed trouble and confusion
amongst them.’
But ere she had done her words Wood-wise had got to speaking quietly with
the Woodlanders; and Bears-bane, who was amidst them, chose out eight of
the best of his folk, men who doubted nothing of hitting whatever they
could see in the Market-place; and they took their stand for shooting,
and with them besides Bow-may were two women and four men of the Wolf,
and Gold-ring withal, a carle of fifty winters, long, lean, and wiry, a
fell shooter if ever anyone were.
So all these notched their shafts and laid them on the yew, and each had
between the two last fingers of the shaft-hand another shaft ready, and a
half score more stuck into the ground before him.
Now giveth Wood-wise the word to these sixteen as to which of the felons
with the glaives they shall each one aim at; and he saith withal in a
soft voice: ‘Help cometh from the Hill; soon shall battle be joined in
Silver-dale.’
Thus stand they watching Bow-may and Gold-ring till they draw home the
notches; and amidst their waiting the glaive-bearing felons fall
a-singing a harsh and ugly hymn to their crooked-sword god, and the
Market-stead is thronged endlong and overthwart with the tribes of the
Dusky Men.
There now standeth Bow-may far-sighted and keen-eyed, her face as pale as
a linen sleeve, an awful smile on her glittering eyes and close-set lips,
and she feeling the twisted string of the red yew and the polished sides
of the notch, while the yelling song of the Dusky priests quavers now and
ends with a wild shrill cry, and she noteth the midmost of the priests
beginning to handle his weapon: then swift and steady she draweth home
the notches, while the yew bow standeth still as the oak-bole ere the
summer storm ariseth, and the twang of the sixteen strings maketh but one
fell sound as the feathered bane of men goeth on its way.
There was silence for a moment of time in the Market of Silver-stead, as
if the bolt of the Gods had fallen there; and then arose a huge wordless
yell from those about the altar, and one of the priests who was left hove
up his glaive two-handed to smite the naked slaughter-thralls; but or
ever the stroke fell, Bow-may’s second shaft was through his throat, and
he rolled over amidst his dead fellows; and the other fifteen had loosed
with her, and then even as they could Wood-wise and the others of their
company; and all they notched and loosed without tarrying, and no shout,
no word came from their lips, only the twanging strings spake for them;
for they deemed the minutes that hurried by were worth much joy of their
lives to be. And few indeed were the passing minutes ere the dead men
lay in heaps about the Altar of the Crooked Sword, and the wounded men
wallowed amidst them.